


I Need More Than Myself This Time

by imawalkingtravesty



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxious Tony Stark, Canon Compliant, Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, Depressed Tony Stark, Depression, F/M, Hurt James "Rhodey" Rhodes, Hurt Tony Stark, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Panic Attacks, Pepper Potts Is a Good Bro, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective James "Rhodey" Rhodes, Protective Pepper Potts, Self-Harm, Suicide Attempt, Tony Stark Angst, Tony Stark Has Issues, Tony Stark Has Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Tony Stark Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-03
Updated: 2020-03-03
Packaged: 2021-02-23 04:08:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23005507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imawalkingtravesty/pseuds/imawalkingtravesty
Summary: "Can you stay?” Tony asked.Every single cell in Pepper was telling her to say no. They were on a break, there was no way that they could go back to platonically cuddling. There was no platonic in this relationship. They both knew too much about the other, how they would react to certain subjects, when to talk and when to stay silent. But Tony was hurt, broken, and if she left him alone when he asked not to be, she wouldn’t be able to live with herself.She climbed under the blankets on the left side of the bed, wrapping her arms around him. Just like old times.In which Civil War left Tony Stark broken and alone, and Pepper Potts has to save the day.OR how Pepper and Tony got back together after the break.
Relationships: James "Rhodey" Rhodes & Tony Stark, Pepper Potts/Tony Stark
Comments: 18
Kudos: 240
Collections: Great stories





	I Need More Than Myself This Time

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to write a happy ending :)  
> I don't usually write love stories, so this was different. Let me know what you think in the comments!  
> Heed the tags for triggers!!

Pepper couldn’t help herself.

The break. Her words. She couldn’t keep thinking about coming home to a dead body. It was self-care at that time, she could feel herself deteriorating at times with worry. Tony plagued her mind, took over, until she finally had enough and left him all alone. But she still cared. So even though she was going back to a broken Tony Stark, even more broken then he had been before the break, she couldn’t help herself.

He had no one. That’s what Rhodey had said when he had called, asking for a favour. And he was right; the Avengers were gone, no more than an idea again, Vision had left to go find Wanda, and Rhodey was in the hospital. Tony would just be alone at the compound, with too much time to overthink things. Wallowing in guilt. Pepper knew Tony too well to not know how hard he was taking it, and he was probably taking it out on himself. 

_I know you’re on a break, Pep, but Tony needs someone. He has no one left._

Rhodey’s words echoed in her head as her high-heels clicked on the hard floor on the way to the residency area of the Avengers compound. It really was empty; not a person in sight, the silence deafening. A pang went through her heart as she realized that Tony had spent the past couple of days in this environment. She suddenly didn’t want to see how he’d been holding up; she knew it wasn’t good. He could never handle change well.

She expected him to be in his workshop, working away the long hours, blasting his usual rock music to chase away the eerie silence, but as she got closer, it was still quiet. There was no low thumping of the bass, no high vocals, no ripping guitars. Just silence. And as she approached the workshop’s glass panels, she realized that it was empty; and that was very uncharacteristic of Tony Stark. Tony would usually be working the sadness and loneliness away, trying to make sure that it never happened again through self-destructive work binges.

“If I may, Miss Potts, Boss is in his bedroom,” FRIDAY said, making her jump. Her female voice echoed around the hallway, being the only noise around. In her time away, she had forgotten about the change of JARVIS to FRIDAY.

“Thank you,” Pepper whispered, leaving the workshop to find Tony’s bedroom.

The silence was chasing her wherever she went. She did not want to think about Tony rattling around the empty compound. She did not want to think about silence being the only thing that he woke up and fell asleep to. She did not want to think about the place being completely void of any noise, leaving room for the voices that she knew plagued his mind whenever he wasn’t busy. Working was his distraction. And if he wasn’t working, then who knew where his mind went off to.

\--

Tony was lying in bed.

Alone. Who would’ve guessed. 

He had nowhere else to be but right where he was. He couldn’t work anymore; that was his one escape from reality, the one thing he could do to make sure that his thoughts were at bay, so that he didn’t have to think about Steve Rogers bringing the shield down on him again and again, so that he didn’t have to think about the life leaving his mother’s eyes, so he did not have to think about how alone he was, and about the giant clusterfuck he created. He didn’t even have Pepper and Rhodey, which was a first.

But there was nothing to fuel his motivation to work. Everything he ever fought for, built anything for, it was all gone. He felt weak; his arms didn’t like being his arms, they felt detached sometimes, and every move made him queasy. He couldn’t sleep, either; he was tired, no doubt, but his brain wouldn’t shut up and let him sleep, he just had to keep thinking about stupid things, stupid memories. When he did sleep, it was plagued with nightmares and he’d rather be awake than have to suffer through everything again. He’d rather think about it than relive it.

It started with Pepper leaving with Happy. His fault. Then the accords with the Avengers. Also his fault.

Rhodey was in the hospital, in pain. His fault again. When was it not going to be his fault.

He really was alone.

\--

“Tony?”

He lifted his head up at the voice, surprised; it was the first voice he’d heard in a while, and his heart panged. Pepper.

“Are you alright?”

It was a stupid question; but Tony didn’t point that out, because he was so fucking tired and so fucking done that he couldn’t even summon the strength to speak at that point. He lowered his head back on his pillow, closing his eyes. Pepper wouldn’t come back for him. This was probably a dream. If it was a dream, then it was sure going to turn into a nightmare at some point or another. Or he was going delusional, seeing things. He wouldn’t be surprised.

“Talk to me,” Pepper said, and this time he felt her hand on his face, tracing the small scratches on his skin that were almost healed. Cap had made those in Siberia.

He didn’t want to think about Siberia.

“Do you want me to get you water?” she offered. “Food?”

He drank a bit. That was the only time when he could summon the energy to get up, because he was uncomfortably parched. But he couldn’t eat; it just came right back up with a vengeance, the bile stinging his throat and nose, leaving an unpleasant taste in his mouth. He shook his head no, because opening his mouth and speaking the words felt like too much work. 

He opened his eyes, thinking really hard about waking up, but he still wasn’t dreaming. Pepper really was here. He could’ve cried from relief but he swallowed thickly, keeping the tears away. She seemed to guess what he was feeling, though, because she moved her hand to his scalp and massaged it in the way that she knew he liked. And he loved her for it, but they were still on a break, and with every millisecond his heart pained him even more because he wasn’t allowed to feel that way. He never stopped loving her.

He fell asleep to her massaging his head. 

\--

He woke up to food and water and a sticky note that said that she was out buying groceries, and that maybe he should take a shower while she was gone.

He obliged, standing under the warm stream of water, the soap running down his body. He looked down at the damage done to his chest; a giant mess of scar tissue where the arc reactor once was, a whole bunch of cuts and bruises from the fight in Siberia. He hated looking at the bruises, he hated looking at the reminders left by Steve Rogers about how he wasn’t good enough to hold the team together. Tony Stark was the man who killed the Avengers.

He shut off the water, threw on sweatpants and a tank top, then climbed back into bed. The food and water remained untouched, even when Pepper came back and begged him to eat something, but he just shook his head and mumbled something about how he would just throw up and that there was no point. Then he looked away, because he couldn’t stand the concerned look in Pepper’s blue eyes, because it was his fault that she felt this way even though he couldn’t do anything about it. 

Everything was his fault.

\--

Pepper was in the middle of a meeting when she got a call from the hospital.

Tony had overdosed on an opioid. An entire bottle of oxycodone. FRIDAY had called an ambulance when his vitals started plummeting, and Pepper quickly excused herself from the meeting and took a taxi to the hospital, not trusting her shaking hands to get her there alive. The people at the meeting were all frowning at her abrupt exit, but she’d deal with that later. Right now all that mattered was Tony.

There were reporters and press swimming around the hospital entrance; news traveled fast. They were shouting at her as soon as she stepped out of the taxi, words that didn’t register in her brain, asking for her to give a statement when she barely knew what was going on herself. A few security guards recognized her and escorted her to Tony’s room, leaving with a small sad smile and their condolences. 

She pushed open the door, swallowing heavily, afraid of what she’ll see.

Tony was lying in bed, fiddling with the heart monitor connected to his finger. He looked up briefly when she came in, but his eyes were quickly diverted to his hands. He looked small in the bed, his posture miserable and his eyes dull. There was no spark in them anymore. They just looked empty, hopeless. 

Tony just tried to kill himself.

_He tried to kill himself._

She was trying her best to not cry, because she definitely still loved him. She still cared about him. She didn’t want to see him hurting to the point where he’d rather end it all than live to see another day. It hurted to see that he thought that he was better off dead, that he didn’t matter anymore, that there was no point in simply existing anymore. It hurted to see that he recognized how much he had lost. 

He deserved to have a family, he deserved a loving home. 

But he lost it all.

“Why?” she choked out eventually, counting her breaths to steady herself. She kept her hands folded against her mouth, silencing any cries or hitched breaths that might force their way through.

Tony shrugged sadly. He had maybe said four words to her in the past few days. A stark difference from the talkative genius he was before.

\--

They tried to make him stay in the hospital but Tony absolutely refused, and since he was an adult and making conscious decisions, they had to let him go. He spent one night there to make sure that all of the drugs had left his system, then they prescribed Prozac for him to take regularly, and discharged him. Pepper drove him home, the medicine making him restless and shaky. The side effects would go away mostly once the body adjusted to the drug, the doctors had said. He should be back to normal soon. Whatever normal was.

Pepper moved in with him, occupying the guest bedroom until further notice. She brought him his medicine at the right times, forcing him to take it, not leaving him alone until he did. She forced him out of bed, even if it was just to migrate over to the couch. She cooked him his favourite meals, and frowned when he could only take a few bites until he pushed it away in favour of retching over the toilet bowl. She always made sure he was well hydrated. She forced him to take a shower every few days, making his bed and setting out fresh clothes while he was cleaning up.

“I don’t want to do this,” he said after every instruction.

It wasn’t headstrong, it wasn’t from laziness. It wasn’t stubborn, those words. It was just that he didn’t want to do it, he saw no point in fixing himself, a hopeless case.

It broke Pepper’s heart every time.

\--

One night, FRIDAY spoke up, her tone of voice urgent. “Boss is in need of assistance.”

She quickly threw the covers off of her bed, dreading the worst. Her feet padded along the long hallway as she tried not to get ahead of herself. Tony was probably fine. If he wasn’t, FRIDAY would’ve already called an ambulance. He had probably just collapsed, malnutrition getting the better of him. But the warning labels and pamphlets stuck out at her, their words, black on white, echoing in her mind.

_Antidepressants can increase the risk of suicidal thinking and behavior in children, adolescents, and adults with major depressive disorder. Closely monitor patients of all ages for clinical worsening and emergence of suicidal thoughts and behaviors._

The door to the bathroom wasn’t locked, so she knocked and pushed it open. Tony was slumped against the bathtub, still alive and conscious, but there was a cracked, plastic razor on the tile beside him, a metal razor blade held loosely in his right hand, and five neat and bloody lines on his left wrist. The blood was mixing with the white of the tile, filling in the grout between them. She closed her eyes, the metallic scent of blood and the scene before her too much to handle, and she took a couple deep breaths to compose herself before grabbing the first-aid kid from the cabinet under the sink.

Tony didn’t try to hide it. He kept his wrist pointed up at the ceiling, staring down at it with mild interest as Pepper rinsed the cuts with a damp cloth. He flinched from the sting when she cleaned them with rubbing alcohol, but that was about as much movement as he made. He didn’t say anything, either. Pepper would’ve liked to say that it surprised her, but she had grown used to the silence in a way. So had Tony.

She carefully wrapped his wrist in a tensor bandage to hold the gauze in place, then held out her hand. Tony took it with his good arm and Pepper hauled him up, careful to steady him from the sudden change in position. She made him drink a bit of water then helped him to bed, tucking the blankets under his chin.

“Pep. Can you, can you stay?” he asked, his voice raw and hoarse from not being used. 

Every single cell in Pepper was telling her to say no. They were on a break, there was no way that they could go back to platonically cuddling. There was no platonic in this relationship. They both knew too much about the other, how they would react to certain subjects, when to talk and when to stay silent. But Tony was hurt, broken, and if she left him alone when he asked not to be, she wouldn’t be able to live with herself.

She climbed under the blankets on the left side of the bed. Tony was the little spoon. Just like old times.

Old times when he was okay. When they both expressed love to each other, when they were a power couple in the industry, both directing Stark Industries. When Tony had the Avengers as a work family, when they would joke around and be friends, a family that Tony had never been a part of until then. When he battled and fought to save the world, to clear his name for all of the wrong he had done before, from leaving women in the morning to making war profit for the wrong reasons.

Old times when he worked himself to the bone because he was afraid of losing his Avengers family, the only family he’d truly enjoyed. When he frequently gave Pepper gifts and expensive things and a six figure salary because he didn’t want her to leave him. When he tried his best because he was so, so scared of being alone. He tried so hard to make people like him. He tried so hard to protect his family from threat, because he didn’t want anyone else to ever leave him again for not being good enough.

But no matter how hard he tried, it wasn’t enough.

“Pep,” Tony said finally.

“Mm?”

“The Winter Soldier killed my mom.”

“Oh, Tony.”

He started crying. And she couldn’t do anything but hug him, and he was shaking so much and if only she could just take all of his pain away with some sort of touch, because he was a good man. He did his best. He took accountability, he was human and not a machine. He didn’t deserve this pain, he didn’t deserve whatever happened in Siberia.

She didn’t know what happened there. He wouldn’t tell her anything. But she knew that Steve and Bucky had fought him, two super-soldiers against a man in a can who could hurt, who could think and who knew that he was going to lose but fought anyway. She didn’t know the extent of his injuries except for the way that he held himself and would get all nervous whenever Pepper moved towards him. Sure, there were the still visible scratches on his face, but she hadn’t seen him without his shirt on and she was positive that there were bruises and cuts galore underneath. And of course, there was the whole loneliness issue. Steve Rogers and the others, people Tony had grown to like and idolize, had left him, kicked him while he was down.

All of Pepper’s trust in the Avengers was gone. 

He cried himself to sleep. Pepper buried her face in his shoulder and tried not to think about the stinging behind her eyelids or the lump in her throat.

\--

Rhodey got cleared for visitors. It was the first time that Tony willingly got out of the house.

He took shower, shaved (in front of Pepper, she didn’t trust him with a razor alone anymore), and got cleaned up. He put on casual business attire, so that if there was press, he would at least not look like he was homeless. So that if there was press and it got all the way to where the ex-Avengers were hiding, they would be able to see how well he was doing. He was doing just fine without them.

A part of Pepper wanted them to see how badly Tony was shaken up, just so that they knew what they really did to him, but it wasn’t her place. Besides, Tony cleaned up nicely and he was getting out of the house. He even wanted to drive, and he looked at peace for once. There wasn’t a smile on his face and he sure didn’t look happy, but he held himself up better like there wasn’t a ten-ton weight on his shoulders. 

But then halfway through the drive to the hospital, Tony suddenly pulled over onto the soft shoulder, the gravel crunching under the tires as the car rolled to a stop. Pepper turned to him, confused.

“Tony?”

“Sorry,” he said quickly. She noticed how his knuckles were white on the steering wheel and his chest was falling and rising quickly.

“What is it?” She bit back worry.

“I, I can’t, I’m-” he stammered out, before gasping and wrenching the door open. He fell onto the thankfully empty street, his legs giving out, hugging himself. His hands were grabbing at his shirt fabric to hold onto something, and his eyes were screwed shut.

Pepper quickly got out of the car and knelt beside him, putting a hand on his shoulder. He flinched but didn’t draw away, so she rubbed soothing circles on him, recognizing the symptoms.

“Just breathe,” she said softly.

But he couldn’t. Because it was his fault that Rhodey broke, that he was in the hospital in the first place. It was because of the accords, and if he had never asked Rhodey for help, if he had fought the battle himself, or if he had just agreed with Cap and not signed it, then Rhodey would’ve been okay. If he was faster to catch his friend, if he had installed a parachute, if he hadn’t made the suit dependent on one power source, because he made the suit goddammit, it was his fault. _All his fault._

“Breathe,” she repeated.

“My fault,” Tony croaked out.

“Don’t say that. Just breathe,” Pepper said again.

Once his breathing got less erratic and his hands weren’t numb and tingly, he looked up at Pepper, who was still rubbing circles on his shoulder. “M’sorry.”

“Don’t be,” she said, her lips pursed with worry. “Do you want to go back to the compound?”

“I want Rhodey.”

She buckled him up in the passenger seat, taking over driving even though she was in heels because his hands wouldn’t stop shaking. She spared a glance at him every few kilometres, noticing that the closer they got to the hospital, the more prominent the shaking in his hands became, until he put his hands under his thighs to stop them from shaking so much. He was still pale and defeated, though. She noticed him counting his breaths, calming himself down again whenever he got too panicky.

Rhodey was visibly not well when they arrived. He put on a brave face for Tony, though, because Rhodey also knew Tony too well to not know that he was beating himself up for his injury. He kept pointing out the bright side of things, including the sponge baths from the really hot nurse (that got a small smile out of Tony- victory) and talked about how the food was surprisingly good for a hospital. 

“I’m going to be just fine; wait and see, Tones,” Rhodey said, even though everyone knew it was a lie.

Tony excused himself for a bit, saying something about getting a coffee. Rhodey’s entire facade fell once he left, and he stared up at Pepper, concern written all over his face. “He’s not okay.”

“He tried to kill himself,” Pepper admitted. 

“Oh, man.” Rhodey dragged his hand across his face. “I’m so sorry.”

“He’s on meds now. He’s getting better. He wasn’t even working before; he just stayed in bed all day,” she said, all of the words spilling out of her. “I think he misses having people around.”

“Is there anyone left at the compound?” 

Pepper shook her head no. “Do you know what happened? In Siberia? He won’t tell me.”

“He didn’t tell me any details,” Rhodey recalled. “But I know that Cap slammed his shield against his arc reactor and escaped with Bucky.”

Pepper frowned, her brow furrowed. “Cap did _what?”_

“He’s got bruises all over his sternum, I’m sure they’re healed a bit by now. He said they didn’t hurt, but...” He shrugged. “you know how Tony is.”

“He’s always hiding his pain.”

“Always been like that. If I could punch Howard Stark in the face, I would.”

Tony returned, the hand holding the paper coffee cup shaking, but none of them pointed it out for his sake. Rhodey continued to lie his way through, cracking jokes and saying that everything was going to be okay. He wasn’t in any pain, they were feeding him well, and the people were nice. But Tony knew that it was all bullshit and his smile felt tight and his lips were stretched and everything just felt fake because he did that. Rhodey was hurt. His fault.

Tony’s hands wouldn’t stop shaking.

He was near tears when they left the room, clearing his throat every few seconds to get rid of the lump that resided there. Pepper took his hand, squeezing it softly, letting him know that she was there for him. He looked down at their hands as if surprised that Pepper was willing to hold hands again, then he figured it was probably because he was shaking and she was just trying to get him to stop. When they got to the car, though, and Pepper let go of his hands, the trembling resumed. 

Pepper drove again, and Tony leaned against the window with his shaking hands clasped in his lap, his eyes wide open and empty and thinking about all of the things he could’ve done.

\--

As soon as they got back, Tony announced that he was going to work downstairs.

“I’m making legs.”

“For Rhodey?”

“Yeah,” he called back, already gone.

A part of Pepper was glad that he was getting back to normal, but it worried her at the same time. He didn’t have a great record of taking care of himself while he was working, and that would probably lead to different problems with his sleep schedule, but he would be back to his old self. Working would give him a distraction from all of the pain that he’d been feeling, as now he finally had motivation, but it was still unhealthy. She was brought back to the time that he stayed up for days on end before finally telling her that something was wrong. Days sleeping in an empty bed, waiting until he’d admit that he wasn’t okay. He worked to avoid sleeping, because sleeping was plagued with nightmares. That was what he told her.

Pepper decided that even if he was going to work, he was still going to follow a routine that allowed him to be put to bed at a regular time, to be eating three times a day, and to be taking his meds at the right time. She brought down meals and listened to him talk animatedly about what he was doing even though she had no clue what he was saying. She smiled as he began to eat full meals without the upset stomach, as life returned slowly to his eyes. The familiar talkative Tony Stark was coming back slowly, but surely.

\--

The bad nights still sprung up, though. When Pepper would send him to bed and he’d be alone with his thoughts that were too loud, and he’d be staring at the label on the stupid little Prozac bottle, wondering if he was really getting better. It was just the drugs. The drugs made him stop wanting to rid himself from the universe, and he shouldn’t be wanting to rid himself from the universe in the first place, but he didn’t really want to be dependent on something so that he felt okay. He knew it was stupid, that they were made specifically to help him, and that millions of people took the same thing, but he couldn’t help but wonder what would happen if he got off of the medicine. Would he stay healthy, finally healed, or would he go back to the declination of his mental health?

He stopped wanting to kill himself, sure, and it definitely gave him more energy, but the pills didn’t keep the other thoughts away. How he wasn’t good enough. How he was always inadequate. It never made the looming dark cloud go away completely, it was always in the back of his head, and once he finally got a second to himself, it stayed with him, blanketing everything and making it all heavy. And it sure didn’t keep his growing feelings for Pepper away.

_STARK, ANTHONY_  
_TAKE ONE TABLET BY MOUTH EVERY MORNING_  
_30 FLUOXETINE 20MG TABL_

“Tony?” 

“Hi,” Tony said, fiddling with his hands nervously in her bedroom doorway, his form backlit by the hallway light. He swallowed hard, his mouth dry.

“What’s wrong?” She sat up in her bed, concerned.

“I need company,” he admitted. “It’s… bad. Tonight.”

“C’mere.” Pepper patted the bed beside her. 

“It’s just that my room’s too big and empty and it’s dark and it’s so quiet but so loud all the time and there’s so much to think about and I don’t really know how to explain it, I don’t really know if it’s bad anyway, I just don’t really know and I’m sorry and I’m-”

“You don’t have to have an excuse,” she interrupted his rambling. “If it’s bad, it’s bad.”

Tony closed his mouth, nodding. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be.” She lifted up the blankets for him. “You’re okay.”

Tony climbed into the blankets, feeling the weight of everything slowly slipping away and being replaced by exhaustion. He could already feel his eyelids closing, and the bed was so warm, and he was with _Pepper._ He mentally cursed himself for still feeling something when he wasn’t supposed to, and when he was kind of taking advantage of his bad health to be with her, but he was too tired to fight with himself too much. Being with Pepper, his mind sort of shut off; the words and doubts that plagued him before were gone, and the silence wasn’t deafening, it was comforting. Eventually his breathing evened out and he fell into a calm sleep.

Pepper stayed awake until she was sure that Tony was asleep, just in case he needed anything. She had forgotten how comforting it was to have somebody else with her during the night, just with a warm body pressed against her, a shared, mutual love. She had gotten a taste again when he asked her to stay after she found him bleeding on the floor of his bathroom, and she missed it. She listened to his deep breathing, careful for any hitches, and felt the steady beat of his pulse under his skin. The rhythmic signs of life lulled her to a lazy sleep, with her face pressed against his shoulder, breathing in his scent.

She liked him. She never stopped.

It was always him.

\--

Pepper raised the question of his sobriety one day at the risk of offending him.

“The doctor said I shouldn’t, it reacts with the medicine.” Tony shrugged. “Besides; I really hated drinking.”

“Then why did you used to do so much of it?” Pepper asked, confused.

“I just, I needed it. Like I need pills now,” Tony said quietly. 

“It’s different.” She frowned. “The doctor prescribed the pills.”

“Is it really?” Tony smiled, but it was cold, and Pepper was a bit taken back. She hadn’t seen that expression on his face in a long time. “I needed alcohol to keep the bad thoughts away. Now I use pills to keep the bad thoughts away.”

“Don’t talk like that.” She furrowed her brow. “You know it’s different.”

“Enlighten me.” He swiped the hologram he was working with away, giving Pepper his full attention.

“Brain cells produce levels of neurotransmitters that keep senses and moods consistent and working. But for you, the systems that manage that, they kind of don’t work. The receptors are oversensitive or insensitive to a specific neurotransmitter, making their response to its release to be excessive or inadequate,” she recited from one of the many pamphlets and articles she had read. “The pills help with that.”

“I still don’t like it.”

“You don’t like dependency. I get it. But you’ve made so much progress,” she pressed. “You’re out of bed. You’re eating. Do you know where you were a few weeks ago?”

A corner of Tony’s mouth pulled up into something resembling a crooked smile. “I’m not saying I’m stopping the medication.”

“Not until the doctor says you can,” Pepper instructed.

Tony nodded, looking at a spot above her shoulder. “I’m really sorry.”

“For what?”

“All this. I’m sorry.” He waved a hand around, as if to say ‘look at me’. “We were on a break, and you shouldn’t have come, and I really-”

“Tony. Even if we had completely broken up, I would’ve come back,” Pepper said, afraid of where the conversation was going. She didn’t want to bring up the break, they were better in the strange gray area in between dating and not. “And I’m really glad I did. We would’ve lost you. You were a mess.”

“I still am a mess. Pep, I was always a mess, even before Cap slammed his shield in my chest and left with his mate. I never had a good sleep schedule. I drank. I don’t know how you’re doing this,” Tony rambled. “It’s all my fault, you know? The accords, Rhodey’s injury, when you initially left me. How are you still with me? How are you not tired of me, Pep?”

“Tony,” Pepper said, her lips pursed with concern.

“I’m a mess. You deserve, you deserve someone so much better than me. I’m pinning you down. You’re stuck, and I don’t want you to feel like you’re obliged to stay with me, just because I’m crazy and depressed and clinically insane. If you pick up and leave, that’s alright. I mean, it’s not, and I’ll for sure as hell be really sad, but don’t feel like you _have_ to stay-”

Then Pepper was kissing him, her lips tight against his. Tony didn’t even realize that she had moved closer.

“You talk too much,” she said, pulling away, her hands on his head.

Then she pulled him forward and their lips connected again, and fireworks went off in Tony’s head. He moved his hands to her waist while she kept hers running through his hair, and he never wanted to stop. This was everything he wanted, everything he missed, the pressure on his lips just right and everywhere that Pepper touched him was burning with electricity and fire, and his train of thought just _left_. Gone were the thoughts that usually plagued his brain, wondering if Pepper was only there to pity him. He was okay. For the first time in a very long time, he was okay.

_Pepper._

He missed her.

\--

She slept in his bed that night. Then the night after that. Then after that. They kissed sometimes, never going further, but it was enough for Tony. He could never get tired of kissing Pepper.

“So, are we a thing?” Tony asked nervously one night when they were getting ready for bed. Pepper paused, holding her pajama shirt and fiddling with the fabric before bursting out laughing.

“Oh my God, a ‘thing’? Are we teenagers?”

“Come on, you know what I mean!” Tony protested, the nerves still present, but he couldn’t help but smile at his own ridiculousness. “You know I’m bad at this sort of thing.”

“Say it,” Pepper said, her eyes still smiling.

“Do you like me?” he asked after a deep breath.

“Yes. A lot,” she confirmed.

“And I like you a lot,” he followed up. “Would you like to declare our break officially over?”

“I would.”

And then Tony couldn’t stop the stupid grin from stretching across his face, and then he met Pepper’s eyes, and she was grinning as well. They were both grinning like idiots, but they were _happy_ idiots. Pepper couldn’t believe that Tony really was getting better and how handsome he was when he smiled, and how she had missed that smile that he reserved for her. Tony couldn’t believe that Pepper would actually be willing to be with him, she was a literal Goddess, and he was a mess on a good day, but he put it aside because it was okay. It was always them. It was always meant to be.

_It was always you._


End file.
